


The Faerie Knight of the Western Reaches

by lodessa



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, F/M, Fae & Fairies, Happy Ending, Physical Descriptions Based On Book Appearances, Quests, Romance, tam lin au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 13:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lodessa/pseuds/lodessa
Summary: Brienne has been warned not to tarry in the western reaches of Tarth after dark, as they are the the dominion of the fair folk.  (Tam Lin AU)





	The Faerie Knight of the Western Reaches

**Author's Note:**

  * For [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/gifts).



Brienne, the Evenstar’s daughter, had always liked the westernmost peninsula of Tarth. Others said it was a waste, land that was knee deep in salt water half the time, too flooded for crops or homes and not under water enough for boats or even more rudimentary forms of fishing. Brienne loved its stillness, the sound of the water and birds uninterrupted by villagers or servants. When she was a child, she had pestered her septa incessantly to be allowed to explore and when that failed she’d taken her suit up with her father.

“Very well then,” he had at last agreed when she was twelve, “But you must always be home before nightfall. The reason that place is uninhabited is more than the inhospitable terrain.”

“Father. Whatever it is that you fear may befall me, I can defend myself,” she’d scoffed, hand going to the scabbard at her hip.

“Against bandits or unscrupulous characters I am sure, Brienne. Our master at arms has confessed to me that even he cannot prevail against you with a sword, but not every threat is the kind you can parry with steel, my child.”

Brienne was pleased to hear him praise her prowess with a blade, though he had initially believed as everyone else had that a highborn girl had no place with one. It was the only place she felt she belonged, in the training grounds. Well, the only place except the western reaches

“ Whatever do you mean?”

“The Faerie Queen holds dominion there. You would do well to remember that and tread carefully.”

“I’m not a little girl anymore to be scared off with bedtime stories.”

She knew she was not the heir he deserved, too ungainly and plain to be a proper daughter and yet not the son the gods had deprived him of.

 _If the Faerie Queen were real, I would strike a bargain with her,_ Brienne thought, _No price would be too great to right the injustice of my birth._

The years went by and Brienne became more skilled as a fighter and no more pleasing to behold. Her father tried, the seven help him, but there were no more men who wanted to wed the ugly mannish daughter of a minor house than faeries to grant boons to one.

So she learned how to keep a household running and how to keep the smallfolk content and productive. She did what she could to be a help and not a hindrance, but two things were her own: her fighting and the western reaches of the island.

She heeded her father’s prohibition and was always careful to return from her wandering by nightfall. It wasn’t that she believed in his words about fairies, but she didn’t want to worry him when in this one thing it was in her power to satisfy him.

It was the day after another humiliating failed attempt by her father to secure a betrothal for her when she found the ruins. Perhaps she was moving more quickly that day, fueled by shame and frustration. It is possible that she started out earlier than usual, having slept restlessly, if at all. But it is far more likely that, in her distracted state, she simply did not notice how low the sun had gone in the sky and thus did not turn back as she usually did, before spotting the weathered broken walls and pillars. 

There were other signs that someone had lived on this side of the island many generations ago, but nothing to this scale or former grandeur. The winds and water had aided time in wearing away a great deal of the detail, but as Brienne approached she could see the remains of what must have once have been intricate stonework.

 _Lions_ she realized, though she had never seen one herself. These were like enough to those on the tapestries and in books to be recognizable as the great beasts she was told lived on the mainland, and they were everywhere.

 _Would that I were a lion,_ she thought to herself, _None would dare laugh at me then. My monstrous size would be cause for awe and not pity and mockery._

As she ascended the remains of what must once have been a grand staircase, Brienne noticed the plants growing here above the water line. Thick vines covering what remained of the wall with scarlet blossoms.

 _Roses!_ the sight of them pierced her as sharply as their thorns might. She’d never seen them growing wild before, but she had seen them, brought by a man who used them to remind her of everything she lacked.

Alone in this place, she gazed upon those perfect flowers as though each one of them were a face that judged her. Drawing her sword, Brienne gave in to the urge to strike back at the attack, hacking violently at one after another.

“Who is he who dares to trespass on my home and desecrate my blossoms?” demanded a cruel rich voice behind her.

Brienne turned to find a man standing behind her who was as beautiful as she was ugly. His hair was golden and curled and his eyes as bright as emeralds. He was neither slight nor broad, young nor old. He was something from a song.

 _Beware the fair folk_ , her father’s warning echoed in her mind, but she paid it no heed.

“I am Brienne of Tarth, and these ruins are mine along with the rest of this isle.”

“Isle…” he seemed perplexed for a moment before regaining his previous haunty glare, “Lo, now I perceive you aren’t a man at all, though few would think it as monstrous large as you are, wench.”

“Nor you by the counting of many,” she scoffed, more bravely than she felt.

“I ought to strike you down where you stand for talking to me in such a manner, but it has been long since any have dared venture into my abode and perhaps it shall provide me more sport to give you a head start before I chase you down.”

“I shall not run,” she retorted, knowing him for a predator ever as much as the beasts that once adorned this keep.

“Insolent girl,” he growled, reaching for his blade.

Steel sang as their blades kissed, surprise blossoming on his handsome face as she reacted in time to parry his blow.

“Not bad,” he owned, “for a woman.”

His next move was quicker, and the one that followed faster still. Each time she knocked his sword aside he seemed more focused. 

“Not bad at all,” he conceded, sparks flying as their swords sang with each averted blow.

He was good, better indeed than any she had faced, but Brienne knew knew her own strength. It might have been hours that they danced thus, Brienne sweating and panting and the faerie knight still luminous in the moonlight- _Moonlight!_ she realized with shock and horror, having been so caught up in their duel she had not even noticed the setting of the sun.

In her moment of shock she was distracted enough for him to knock her blade aside, pressing the advantage and tackling her to the ground. 

She recovered quickly, finding the strength to roll them both over so that now it was he who was pinned to the crumbling stone floor. His golden curls shone in the moonlight as he smiled wickedly up at her.

“Yield,” she demanded, pressing her forearm to his throat.

“I will not,” he grinned, seeming monstrously pleased somehow and yet at the same time desperate. “Kiss me, kill me, call me a liar but I will never yield.”

“I have no desire to kill you,” she realized. “You fought well.”

“Then kiss me, wench,” he entreated, writhing beneath her. 

Ashamed, at his evident mockery and her own immodest thoughts, Brienne released her grip of him, stumbling backwards to recover her blade.

“I must go home,” she stammered, “My father will be worried already.”

“If you will not stay,” he rose gracefully, like a great cat, “perhaps you might return. Neither of us have yielded and thus our score is far from settled. On your honor promise to return on the next full moon.”

“I will return,” she agreed, feeling as though she could not have refused him even if she had wanted to.

 _It will be good practice,_ she persuaded herself, _It has been too long since I have faced any man who could truly test my skill._

It was near dawn when she finally reached home, and she found her father awake, pacing in his study restlessly. When he caught sight of her he cried out in relief, throwing his arms around her neck and weeping for joy.

“Forgive me, father,” she entreated him, falling to the ground to clasp his ankles.

“Where have you been, my daughter, that you return home at such an hour, your clothes covered in mud and your hair with filled with leaves?”

“The western reaches,” she confessed, “I did not mean to tarry so long but I discovered some ruins which fascinated me.”

“It worries me, your preoccupation with that place, my child,” her father told her, kneeling down to bring her back to her feet. “A curse befell its inhabitants long ago they say, a doom so destructive it rent Tarth from the mainland for all time.”

“Father, you think overmuch of old tales and songs,” she said to him, though truly she could not deny the knowledge of her own eyes in her heart.

She had indeed met with a creature from such a tale today. No mortal man could be such as he. 

“Still,” she added, finding herself curious now as to the tales she had not paid attention to in many years, “Will you tell me of this curse, father? Though it is late, I find I have no appetite for sleep.”

Her father smiled then, and sent the servants for food and drink as they settled by the hearth, her head resting upon his knee as she had done when she had still been small and could not sleep for ill natured dreams or terrible pangs of growth.

“Long ago,” he began, “before the world shattered, many generations before our house came to this place, there was a great and noble house. Their sigil was a mighty lion and they ruled a great swath of land from their tall keep overlooking the sea.”

It certainly fit the place she had found today, crumbling through it had been.

“The Lannisters, for so they called, were fair of face with golden curls and eyes of the brightest green, like the scales of a mermaid’s tail.”

She thought back to the faerie knight she’d tangled with earlier in the evening, more beautiful than any maid she’d ever beheld. _I did not even ask for his name_ she realized.

“They were also terribly proud, so proud, in fact, that they brought down the wrath of the mighty dragon king upon them. The wise thing, of course, would have been to throw themselves at his feet and beg for mercy, but none amongst them could find it in their hearts to so lower themselves thus. Instead, they made a pact: some say with the Stranger and some say with something else, perhaps one of the Old Gods or those of the Children of the Forest.”

“But father,” she could not resist interjecting, “If the pact was with a god, why should it be considered a curse?”

“All things have a cost, Brienne, as I have always taught you, and the Lannisters, it is said, did not wish to pay that cost once they got what they wanted.”

“ So they broke their promise?” she asked.

“That is what the tales say, though they do not agree on what that oath was or how the Lannisters broke it.”

“And the curse?” Is that how Tarth became an island?”

“Many believe so,” Selwyn smiled, “Though I’ve never found it being so to be a tragedy. Come now, why the sudden renewed interest in legends?”

“Perhaps I just wanted to hear you tell of it,” she evaded, promising secretly to herself that she would not go back to those ruins, whatever she’d told that mysterious knight. After all, he’d said it was his home, and she’d now learned these Lannister lions were known for breaking their word.

She kissed her father dutifully on the forehead and went to bed, though the sun was streaming through her window.

Her dreams, however, were not of a chaste and innocent nature. Brienne awoke, agitated and blushing at the memory of those she could recall, each filled with him, the stranger for the ruins. 

_Perhaps I am cursed now,_ she idly pondered, _Perhaps that wicked spirit has truly cast a spell on me._

Immediately, she laughed at the absurdity and thought to herself it more likely that she’d dreamed up the whole encounter of the day before. In truth, she had mostly convinced herself it must be so, when she glanced down to the pillow where she’d rested her head and noticed the crimson rose half crushed upon it.

She dressed hurriedly and went immediately down to the practice yard to banish all of it from her thoughts.

In the following weeks, Brienne managed to keep herself particularly occupied, with little time to dwell on the mystery of the ruins to the west and the knight she had encountered there. Still every night she dreamed of him. In her dreams, they danced over and over, with blades and in other ways she could not explain where the details for might have come from.

The day of the full moon, she was feverish and retired to bed early. She could not sleep however, and found herself rising to slip from the keep and westwards while the moon was high in the sky.

“I thought you might break your promise with me,” the faerie knight said as she ascended the stairs of the ruins.

He was just as lovely as she had remembered, seeming to almost glow under the moon and stars from his post by what had been in all likelihood a balcony..

“I considered it,” she admitted, walking towards him, “People say your family are not to be trusted, that you never kept your promises.”

“People believe what they wish,” he spat. “They should thank me for their very existence, but instead they call me Oathbreaker. None has been more true to his word than I, not in the thousand years I have served my mistress.”

“What is your name?” she asked him, desirous for anything solid to grasp hold of in the misty night air of this place.

He paused, as if trying to recall something long forgotten.

“Jaime,” he told her at long last, “They used to call me Jaime.”

“Very well then, Jaime,” she replied, his name sweet and heavy on her tongue, like an exotic fruit from Essos. “Shall we resume our sport?”

“As it pleases you, my lady,” he smiled cruelly, drawing his sword once more, and thus began a rapid flurry of blows.

Finally, she found herself with her back pinned up against a wall, Jaime’s sword to her breast. Knocking it aside, she shoved him backward, sending him tumbling down a broken set of stairs.

The moment she saw him fall, regret blossomed in her heart and she hurried after him, praying to whatever god might listen to spare him. She found him, sprawled against a pillar and bent down, feeling how cold his cheeks were.

“Live,” she wept, “I entreat you, live.”

He opened his eyes, which were as vibrant green as she had recalled, and whispered, “Why should you beg such a thing, when you meant to best me? Vanquish me. Finish me, damn you.” 

The suffering in those jade orbs struck her through the heart, and suddenly she knew why he had challenged her but then let her go. Ser Jaime meant for her to defeat him, to slay him and end his limitless life. 

“No,” she spoke softly. “I will do no such thing, not tonight and not on any future night.”

“Whyever will you not?” he demanded, sounding agitated and melancholy, “As a vassal of the Faerie Queen, I must defend my mistress’ realm and if you will not conquer me I must conquer you.”

His threats were hollow, she knew now. She felt in her bones the sadness within him. _Is that what he was seeking all along? Death? _she wondered, but she could not satisfy him in this.__

__“You may try,” she told him, “But I am not so easy to overcome.”_ _

__“No,” he agreed, “You are not, Brienne of Tarth.”_ _

__She thought he might reach for his sword or turn away, but instead he reached out to her and laid his hand upon her face._ _

__“If you do not strike me down or run away, I will without question kiss you,” he warned her, looking at her with an expression no man had ever bestowed upon her homely visage._ _

__“I will not flee and I will not strike you down,” she replied, staring into his green eyes, richer in hue than grass or kelp._ _

__His mouth was cold, but it sparked a fire within her nonetheless. Brienne let herself be drawn down towards him on the ground, down into the foliage, leaves and flowers alike crushed beneath them as she found herself overcome, not as a wielder of swords but as a maiden like any other. Over and over they rolled, like two cats struggling for dominion, until finally, spent, she fell asleep with his head resting on her breast._ _

__She awoke in the daylight, alone._ _

__Her body ached. Her hair was muddied and her clothes torn. Brienne of Tarth, a maid no longer, rose nonetheless and stumbled back to the other side of the island._ _

__She returned home but nothing was the same. She had no appetite for besting the men training at her father’s keep. The bounty of his table was wasted on her as her very stomach betrayed her._ _

__Every man and woman in the keep saw clearly the truth of her condition._ _

__“Brienne, if you will only tell me what man is the cause of your suffering, I will make it right, be he a proud lord or the lowliest of commoners,” her father entreated._ _

__She could only shake her head and say, “No mortal man can ease my condition. Father, I did not heed your warnings and now it is too late. Only that self same faerie can satisfy in this and he belongs to his dread queen, alas.”_ _

__At night, she still dreamt of her beautiful faerie knight, of Jaime with his cruel laugh and haunted eyes: cold and sharp and lovely and sad._ _

__The Evenstar’s daughter’s pain was sharp, but she was not some a flighty girl to be weighed down by her woes. No. Brienne recalled a plant she had heard the kitchen girls speak of, a poison rose that would end the consequences of her shame, though not the shame itself._ _

__She knew where she had seen the plant, the same place she had found him._ _

__Brienne made her choice and ventured out again to the western edge of Tarth, to seek a balm for her grievous state._ _

__The rose was in her grasp when he appeared, the setting sun behind him transforming his golden hair to flames._ _

__“Take not the poison rose,” he called out to her, causing her to drop it in surprise._ _

__“Why should I not? Why should I heed your words?” she asked, “I do not even know your surname or if you were once a mortal man.”_ _

__“It was Lannister and I was, long ago. This was my family’s keep, before the deal my sister struck and I foolishly partook in. She told me we could save our home from invasion, but instead it was rent from the rest of the land. She told me I should be with her always, but then she grasped the mantle of the Faerie Queen with treachery and was herself no more. I fell from my horse, trying to escape her, and she found me, bade me to choose between death and service under her. I would have refused her hellish offer, but she told me elsewise she would sacrifice our little brother and only in serving her could I spare his life. Spare this babe’s life, as I did his, though the cost is steep.”_ _

__“This child would have no father, no honor. You cannot ask me for such a fate, Ser Jaime Lannister”_ _

__“And what if that were not so?” he asked, stopping her hand where it would once again have reached for the poisoned blossom, “What if there were a way to win me from my undying mistress, once and for all?”_ _

__Hope sprang up within her, despite her best efforts, but Brienne could not believe such a thing could be true. Surely it was another trick._ _

__Still she could not help asking, “Is there truly and what would you promise me should I free you?”_ _

__“There is, though it is frightening and treacherous, and you should win by it a husband, Lady Brienne, if you would have me as such,” his words rang clear and true, and as he looked on her she could not help but be affected._ _

__“I would have you,” she owned, “If that is truly your will, free from coercion.”_ _

__She did not want a bridegroom bound to her by necessity rather than love, any more than she wanted any such other than the one who stood before her._ _

__“It is,” he vowed, “I would throw myself at your mercy now were I at liberty to do so.”_ _

__“Very well,” she swallowed, “What is this way?”_ _

__“Tomorrow is All Hallow’s Eve, when all the Court of Faeries participate in the Wild Hunt, an ancient rite and a fearful one, for one of us must be sacrificed every seven years to keep the rest forever youthful. I fear my queen, my sister, who rules over me suspects that my heart is no longer hers and she will choose me for this grave fate.”_ _

___Can he truly love me? He who is so fair while I am the opposite. Or am I merely a tool for his escape?_ _ _

__“Can you not refuse to ride?” she asked, desperate to save him and yet fearful that he wanted a rescue and not a wife._ _

__“I cannot, her magic binds me to her whether I will it or not, but you can break that tie. Only true love can unbind me, love coupled with strength and bravery.”_ _

__“How?” she asked, deciding it did not matter whether he loved her or not. He could no more let him die by his queen’s decree than strike him down with her own blade._ _

__“There is a cove on the furthest reach of the island the procession passes by where you must wait in secret. You shall know it by its shape, which is that of a crescent moon, and by a rock the shape of a star, which protects it from the roughest waters. I will be masked like all the others, but you shall know me by my white horse and that my mask will be that of golden lion. My cloak shall me the purest white. Drag me from my horse and hold me fast, I know you have the strength. Cersei will transform me into all manner of beasts and each shall struggle to escape, but I swear to you I shall not harm you. At last I will transform into a lump of burning coal and you might fling that coal into the ocean’s waves. Once the water covers me, I will become a mortal man once more. Cover me with your own cloak and I will be yours.”_ _

__“I will do this,” she vowed._ _

__True to her promise, Brienne sought out the spot Jaime had described to her and waited, hidden behind a large boulder, until at long last the Court of Faries began to ride through._ _

__The first figure must have been their queen, once Jaime’s sister Cersei and now something cold and otherworldly, a beauty to surpass all beauties with the same golden hair and greenest of eyes, but her eyes were cold and her nails and teeth sharp. Upon her head rested a crown of gold and her garb was red as blood but woven with gold and shining in the moonlight._ _

__After her passed a figure in yellow and black, the mask of a stag upon his face and his steed was black as night._ _

__The third figure was dressed in a steely silver, face covered by a mask in the shape of a wolf, riding upon a pale grey horse._ _

__On an on, knights with masks of every fearsome beast followed, until at least she spied a bright white horse, its rider sporting a lion mask and a pure white cloak._ _

__Steeling her nerves, Brienne stood and grabbed at him as he passed her hiding place, pulling him from his horse. For a moment, she held Jaime in her arms, the mask falling free as they rolled to the ground and uncovering his lovely face._ _

__But then, as he had warned her, suddenly it was not a man in her grip at all, but a powerful lion. The great beast roared, struggling ferociously in her grip, but Brienne held tight._ _

__Next, he became a great snake, desperate to wriggle free, and yet she held fast._ _

__She was lifted from the ground, as within her arms he transformed into a stag, attempting to buck himself free of her. She clasped tightly around his neck, arms growing ever more tired._ _

__She clung to his fur as a great and fearsome bear, body shaking with exhaustion._ _

__As a wolf, he howled and trashed in her arms._ _

__She hit the ground hard, as he became a kraken and attempted to drag them both towards the surf._ _

__She almost released him in shock as he became a great winged lizard, a dragon who lifted off of the ground and left her dangling in the air, and she thought surely her strength would fail her, if this did not end soon._ _

__As if in answer to her desperate prayers, she found herself tumbling back to the sand, a lump of coal burning her hands and half her face as she’d been holding it against that spot. She flung the coal from her, into the waves, before rushing into the surf._ _

__For a moment she thought she must have followed his instructions incorrectly, or that she’d thrown the coal too far and it had been swept away into the sea. But then she spied him, naked as his name day, sputtering for air, and she ran to him, covering him in her own cloak as she dragged him back to the shallows._ _

__“Brienne?” he gasped, opening his eyes to stare up at her with a gaze so much softer than it had been before. He was still magnificently beautiful, but it was a gentler beauty somehow._ _

__“A curse upon your ill-fared face,” the Faerie Queen hissed, and now Brienne perceived that she had doubled back. “You’ve stolen from me with your trickery and I curse you to die in a manner as hideous as your visage. Alas that the fairest of my knights shall be bound by force to one such as you.”_ _

__Her wrath was terrible and great indeed, and Brienne shook to hear it._ _

__“Leave her be,” Jaime interrupted, “You lost me with your own cruelty. Brienne has a heart as fair as yours is black and I did beg of her to rescue me.”_ _

__As he spoke, Brienne knew that he spoke from his heart, that he indeed did love her out of more than necessity. A greater joy overcame her than the fear she had of his former mistress._ _

__Cersei must have seen it too, for she turned her anger to him instead, crying, “Oh treacherous Jaime, now I perceive your falsehood though I valued you above all the rest. I should have gouged your eyes out, before you looked away from me. I should have ripped your heart from your breast and replaced it with one of stone.”_ _

__She raged in this manner, though there was nothing she could do, for all of the fair folk are bound by their own mysterious rules and laws, the greatest of them perhaps more tightly than the rest. Brienne had followed the appointed steps exactly, and Jaime was once again a mortal man. The Faerie Queen was forced to let them go in peace._ _

__The couple made their way up from the shore and across the island, there to be greeted by her noble father, who wept tears of joy to see his daughter again, after two days having feared she had leapt from a cliff’s edge ._ _

__Those who had laughed at and mocked the Evenstar’s daughter gathered now in hushed silence, as awe fell upon them as they laid their eyes upon Ser Jaime Lannister, once faerie knight and now a man once more._ _

__“Here is the husband I have sought, dear father,” Brienne announced, bringing him forward to where Lord Selwyn stood._ _

__Jaime prostrated himself at Lord Selwyn’s feet._ _

__“Your daughter rescued me from the Faerie Queen, but first she stole my heart with her nobility,” he spoke, “If you have half her virtue, perhaps you can forgive the trepress, as I intend to make it right.”_ _

__“I can see in your face that you are from an ancient and noble line, Ser,” her father owned, “And my daughter knows her own heart. Welcome to my home, my son.”_ _

__Brienne and Jaime wed in great haste and joy. The love between them was deep and true. His promises were not, as Brienne had once feared, made out of trickery or desperation, but from the very beating of his heart._ _

__In time they performed all manner of rites to drive the Faerie Queen from Tarth with her lot, for Jaime knew them all. The waters receded then, making the western reaches of the island fit to live in once more. They rebuilt the keep of his family, Casterly Rock as it had been called when it was new, and filled it with their laughing and joyful children._ _

__As for the curses of his sister queen, none of them came to pass. She had overstepped when she sought to move against them, ignoring the rules of her kind, and instead doom haunted the remainder of her long years._ _

**Author's Note:**

> I lost a coin toss with [janie_tangerine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine) earlier this year for who would write the other a Jaime/Brienne version of Tam Lin. Thank you, my friend, for being so patient with how long this took me to get written. I hope it lives up to some small part of your imagination. 
> 
> I have set this fic in an altered version of Westeros (wherein I moved Tarth to the other side of the continent for the convenience of my plot) and in other ways altered the timeline to fit my vision. 
> 
> Clearly this fic uses Jaime's (all Lannisters') book!canon appearance rather than the tv version, but otherwise you could consider in a TV show AU if that suits you better.


End file.
